Emmy Awards 2020: Watchmen wins, Schitt’s Creek sweeps

The 2020 Emmy Awards ceremony went virtual for the first time in its history, and the biggest winners of the night were Watchmen, Schitt’s Creek, and Succession.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the ceremony (jokingly referring to it as the “Pand-Emmys”) in an empty auditorium but with a few actors joining him to present the different awards. The producers of the show sent camera crew to the locations of all the nominees so that the winners would receive their Emmy trophies live and would be able to give their acceptance speeches as well. Despite the new format, there were no major hiccups and the show proved that celebrating the achievements of television was still possible in a pandemic.

Watchmen took home the most number of the awards this year with 11 trophies including Best Limited Series, Best Actress in a Limited Series for Regina King and Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The show, which is based on the 1986 comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, notably became the first comic-book adaptation to win a top prize at the Emmys. The miniseries, created by Damon Lindelof, tackled issues of systemic racism and police brutality and also highlighted the 1921 Tulsa race massacre.

Credit: Pop TV

Schitt’s Creek made history as the first comedy series to win all four acting awards as well as becoming the most awarded comedy in a single year with its 9 trophies. The charming Canadian comedy about a rich family falling on hard times and learning to become better people through love and acceptance ended its six-season run earlier this year and the show is now receiving well-deserved accolades. Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Dan Levy, and Annie Murphy all took home Emmys for their performances on the show while Eugene and Dan also won trophies for writing and directing the show.

Succession took home the prize for Best Drama Series with Jeremy Strong winning Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Andrij Parekh winning for Best Directing for a Drama Series, and showrunner Jesse Armstrong winning for Best Writing for a Drama Series. The series centers on the dysfunctional Roy family who owns a media empire.

Zendaya notably made history with her Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series win (for Euphoria) by being the youngest ever winner for the category (at age 24) and also becoming the only the second Black actor to win this prize. She had been up against veteran stars Jennifer Aniston, Laura Linney, Olivia Colman, Sandra Oh, and Jodie Comer.

HBO emerged with the most number of awards for the evening with a total of 30 awards. Though Netflix has the most number of nominations with 160 compared to HBO’s 107, the streaming service only took home 21 awards this year. Netflix won twice at the Primetime Emmys with Maria Schrader winning Best Directing for a Limited Series for Unorthodox and Julia Garner winning Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for Ozark.

The Mandalorian, it must be noted, tied with Succession in number of Emmy wins, with 7 awards including stunt coordination, musical score, special visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing, production design and cinematography. This marks the first batch of Emmy awards for the newly launched Disney+ streaming service.

Check out the full list of winners HERE.